At the recent Ex Libris Users of North America in Minneapolis, Mark Sanford from William Paterson University spoke about his project to convert the library’s legacy bibliographic data to RDA compliance. Now all their data is more unified, and we will do the same work on new cataloging records that they send to us for processing.

➔ Why was this needed? Some reasons include the fact that their discovery layer had RDA requirements, and there was the potential to use RDA 33X and 34X fields to improve format facets.

See Mark’s presentation here. Please feel free to contact him for more information on their individual experience.

A good number of libraries do this type of work at the point of migration to a new system in order to showcase it in its best light. Migrating to Alma? Or already up on another new system? This work has been successfully performed in Ex Libris Aleph, Ex Libris Alma, Ex Libris Voyager, Follett Destiny, Koha, III Polaris, III Millennium, III Sierra, Sirsi Dynix Horizon, Sirsi Dynix Symphony, etc.

Want more information, including a preliminary quote? Send your inquiry to [email protected] or call us at 800-531-7678.

At the recent IUG (Innovative Users Group) Conference in Minneapolis, two very different libraries had the opportunity to tell their stories about their RDA Conversion experiences. Both use the III Sierra system, did a backfile project with authorities processing and free RDA conversion, and both use MARCIVE for ongoing authorities maintenance. But that’s where all the similarities end. “A Tale of Two Libraries: RDA Conversion from an academic and a public library perspective” details diverse reasons for doing RDA remediation on legacy data, and the planning involved for such a project.

Dana Miller from University of Nevada at Reno spoke about her academic library’s project. They are a long-time MARCIVE customer with a large database of over 1.3 million bibliographic records. Lori Thorrat of Cuyahoga County Public Library is a brand-new customer from a very high-profile, medium-sized public library in Cleveland, Ohio.

The speakers did an excellent job explaining the funding, system preparation, profiling, and outcome of their individual projects. See the academic experience here, and the public library experience here.

Please feel to contact these libraries with any questions about their experiences. Need a quote and/or further information? Please contact us at [email protected]!

Library of Congress has announced several big steps forward in adding to the Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT). General genre terms were approved by LC just before ALA Midwinter 2015. The authority records were distributed to MARC Record Distribution Service subscribers on the Tuesday that many conference attendees were still making their way home from snowy Chicago. Music genre terms are being reviewed by the Library of Congress and will hopefully be approved by the end of February. The literature terms are in the queue for review, with anticipated approval in early March.

Although MARCIVE assisted LC and the various ALA/ALCTS/SAC Working Groups in making the MARC records for these terms, we have to wait like everyone else for the Library of Congress to officially approve the terms and then distribute the records in their weekly files to us.

With the approximately 1,000 general, music, and literature genre terms being approved, there will be a noticeable difference in the MARCIVE NewMatch records received by participants. As the records are approved and distributed, these records will be supplied to libraries based on the usage in their catalogs. These new genre records will be included in the authority records MARCIVE supplies to you, if:

The term is in your history file of unrecognized terms;

The term matches a temporary MARCIVE (shg) genre record;

The term is used in a newly processed bib record.

Libraries with the NewMatch service routinely have their unrecognized terms reviewed. Whenever these terms match a newly established term, the new authority record will be supplied. The records will not be supplied if:

A library opted to not include genre terms in authorities processing, or;

They do not have NewMatch option, or;

The genre terms were matched to GSAFD.

Notification customers will receive the new LCGFT authority records whenever these terms match to the temporary MARCIVE genre records. These are records provided by MARCIVE to validate genre terms before LC began creating genre authority records. We are tracking these terms, so when they are established in LCGFT we will supply a delete record for the MARCIVE genre record previously supplied, and replace it with the LCGFT record. These temporary genre records are identified by a “shg” prefix in the control number. There are genre-like terms in LCSH used as the basis for some of the MARCIVE genre records for which there will never be a replacement in LCGFT.

Each library will have to decide how they want to handle these “local” authority records. Libraries are welcome to continue to use them, but it would also be appropriate to review these and replace any with nationality, language, or other demographic qualifiers with the unqualified LCGFT term.

Any bib records sent through Overnight Authorities Processing can be matched against the current LCGFT file and receive matched authority records.

If you do not have one of these services or you have a split between genre thesauri and would like to have assistance with making changes, please contact your MARCIVE representative, or send an email to [email protected].

Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), is replacing the former Guidelines on Subject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, Etc. (GSAFD). While many libraries still use GSAFD terms in their catalogs, this controlled vocabulary list is no longer updated by the American Library Association. LCGFT provides a live, developing international standard for genre and form access to individual works of fiction, drama, poetry, humor, and folklore, etc. in all formats. Subject headings describe what a work is about, while genre/from terms describe what a work is.

For example a subject heading of 650 _0 $a Western films is a work about Western films.

A genre heading of 655 _7 $a Western films $2 lcgft is a work that is a Western film.

In March 2015 the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) will approve approximately 390 genre/form terms for literary works. MARCIVE played an important role in this venture, as we created MARC authority records for the proposals from a Word document provided by the Working Group on LCGFT Literature Terms. We also created records for 175 “general” genre/form terms, which are schedule for approval in January 2015. Not stopping with only literature terms, MARCIVE went on to create 563 records for music genre terms, which PSD plans to approve in February 2015.

The generation of these authority records by MARCIVE saved the Library of Congress and the Working Groups hundreds of hours of manual labor. This will significantly decrease the time libraries must wait for their approval and distribution. The addition of over 1,000 genre terms to the LCGFT list in early 2015 will noticeably improve management and retrieval of materials in any library collection. MARCIVE customers with Notification or NewMatch Services will automatically receive any of these authority records if their history file reflects their use.

Written by Joan Chapa, with contributions from Mary Mastraccio and Carol Love.

Technical services staff often has to either 1) create a proposal for database cleanup projects or 2) create an analysis of what was accomplished in the project. Either way, it is to provide justification for expenditures that are sometimes considered unnecessary by anyone not in Technical Services.

Illustrating why a RDA conversion project is needed is often a hurdle. It’s not as easy as pulling together circulation statistics. Kirk Doran of Dickinson University (currently use SirsiDynix Symphony) created a slideshow that gives clear-cut examples of what was accomplished in a project involving automated authorities processing with a RDA conversion. His examples show how RDA conversion projects will prep your database for today’s information environment and make your OPAC more user-friendly to patrons. Click here for the link!

Written by Ligia Groff, MLS

Special thanks to Kirk Doran, Technical Services Librarian at Dickinson University for allowing us to share his presentation.

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We have heard this question a few times now, and it’s a valid one. LC’s Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) has recommended against an automated conversion of the 260 fields to 264 if the record is a serial or integrating resource. It is difficult or impossible to program this reliably. Since MARCIVE follows PCC recommendations, records coded as serials or integrating resources will not have the 260 changed to 264. It IS acceptable to manually change these locally.

PCC additionally recommends not changing the 260 for multi-volumes items. After reviewing records and doing extensive testing, MARCIVE is excluding records with date type [008/06] m, c, d, e, k, i, q, or u in the programming used to convert 260 fields to 264 fields. This is being done to avoid the risk of creating incorrect 264 second indicator values.

However, we are sensitive to our customers’ individual needs and can force all 260 fields to 264 fields upon request.

For more information about the 264 field, see the PCC guidelines about this field.

Written by Joan Chapa, MLS

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MARCIVE has offered cataloging services since 1981. Did you know we can provide full MARC records from your Excel spreadsheet, with no annual minimums or subscription fees?

This service is perfect for the library that:

Has purchased a large set of resources and only received an Excel spreadsheet from a vendor (e.g. Overdrive).

is run primarily of volunteers with no cataloging experience, such as a church or small school library.

received a large donation of books from a personal collection.

is looking for an economical and fast way to upgrade their database to a MARC-based ILS.

If you supply us with an Excel spreadsheet with ISBN numbers, call numbers, and location, we can match those records in a batch process, and supply you with full MARC records for only $.27 per record! Don’t worry if your spreadsheet has more or less fields, let us take a look and we’ll let you know what we can do.

Search on your own. Sometimes, the information in the record is not sufficient to safely make a match in an automated process. You can compare your original list with the records/labels received or use the Book catalog to manually search MARCIVE WebSelect for all the no matches.

Have us map the records to MARC for you. We can map the metadata to the appropriate MARC fields for you to simply load into your ILS.

Converting legacy data to RDA is a challenging idea to take hold in public libraries because of a school of thought regarding the short-lived nature of the collection. If your collection flips over every 15 years, why do anything with the legacy data?

Converting to RDA preps your data for the next generation systems and organizes your records in a layout that is easier for patrons to understand. Public libraries, in particular, have more formats than many other types of libraries, so the blanket term “electronic resource” is no longer relevant in today’s information environment. But don’t take our word for it, here is why some of our happy customers converted to RDA:

“Cuyahoga County Public Library chose to convert our data to RDA for simplicity. Having our data in RDA format created a level of consistency that simplifies the configuration of the public catalog, improving our customer’s ability to find and retrieve materials. Dates are very important both for searching and sorting data. Just having all of our publication dates in a single MARC field allows us to streamline how records display and sort in the public catalog. Because RDA is an internationally recognized standard, having our data already in RDA format will facilitate the conversion of our legacy data to Bibframe, the next generation schema for bibliographic data.”

Somerset County Library System
Adele Thoma Barree, Head of Technical Services

“We know that we will not have our current ILS forever, and that RDA is designed to handle links and connections among all types of data. Getting our database in the best possible shape for the future is something MARCIVE can help us with by modifying our bibs to reflect basic RDA format. We are very glad you offer this service!”

Thousand Oaks Public LibraryStacy Gordon, Cataloging Librarian

“Legacy data is worth converting so that older materials become as discoverable as new materials, especially as library management systems and other discovery layers begin to take more advantage of the new fields for content, media, and carrier type. Since these fields (336, 337, and 338) have controlled vocabularies, greater consistency will be achieved between older and newer records. As well, when BibFrame is ready to replace MARC, more of your records will be ready to be crosswalked to the new metadata standard that will be more compatible with other information systems in the greater linked data world.

Library catalogs have gone through many changes, and a recent change is to the new cataloging standard, RDA. Among the benefits of RDA are fewer abbreviations (no more “ill.” for illustrations or the Latin “s.l.” for “Place of publication not identified,” and many others), more relationships identified between works, entities, manifestations, and items, as well as between persons, families, and corporate bodies and these FRBR requirements, and a catalog that’s data conform better to what’s being seen in the wider world outside of libraries. Conversion would provide for greater consistency within your catalog, and will allow users to find information more easily, with RDA’s allowance for a greater number of access points, increasing discoverability.

We had no trouble deciding to go with MARCIVE for performing the retrospective conversion of our database to RDA. We have had MARCIVE do our authority control for 12 years, and they have been extremely fast, reliable, and with gracious customer service.”

–written by Ligia Groff, MLS

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ERIC documents have been traditionally thought of as education materials, but that is too limiting! ERIC documents contain a wealth of information with topics ranging from nutrition to folk culture to architecture. But an architecture student might not think to look for information on facilities design and accessibility for the disabled in the “Education Database”.

Having ERIC documents accessible through an alternative means is available in the form of MARC records. These MARC records can be downloaded into the library’s online catalog, making them searchable by anyone. Conducting a search in an online catalog that includes ERIC MARC records using the keywords “facilities design” and “accessibility” yields 49 results, of which 43 were ERIC documents!

If you would be interested in making your library’s ERIC documents more readily accessible to all of your students, ask us how!

No Cost GPO Catalog Records for Depository Libraries: Cataloging Record Distribution Program (CRDP)

The Cataloging Records Distribution Program (CRDP) provides for GPO-produced catalog records to participating Federal depository libraries. Cataloging records are made available to libraries based on a customized profile, according to each library’s unique needs. MARCIVE works with each participating library to develop a CRDP profile that determines the types of records provided monthly. Libraries in turn add the records to their own library catalogs, which enhances public access and awareness of U.S. Government publications. As noted on the CRDP website, the advantages to participation are many, including:

The service is available at no cost to participating libraries.

Bibliographic records are provided monthly based on the current library FDLP item selection profile.

Participants may configure the bibliographic record files they receive.